chronotsr

[chronotsr]

No. 5 - D2, Shrine of the Kuo-Toa (August 1978)

Author(s): Gary Gygax Artist(s): David C. Sutherland III (Cover), David A. Trampier Level range: Average of 10, preferrably party size 7+ players Theme: Underground exploration Major re-releases: D1-2 Descent into the Depths of the Earth, GDQ1-7 Queen of the Spiders

I'm almost speechless. This is the most 1e module cover to ever have 1e'd. It is perfection. The way the combat is perfectly perpendicular to the step pyramid. The bondage gear fishman who has a complete fishhead so you 100% understand he's a fishman. Lobster mommy saluting the troops. It's just….it's what dreams are made of.

So I'm already in love with this module, deeply and irrationally in love with it, before breaking the cover. If you're BORING you might prefer the later Jim Roslof cover art that's got lame things like technical proficiency. Ugh. The shit I have to put up with.

Anyway, there's a lot to talk about with D2! It's a lot of firsts for an official TSR product, and critically it's a lot of GOOD firsts.

It's the debut of the Kuo-Toa, one of the most fun groups of people in D&D! It's the first module that doesn't presume the enemy will be inherently aggressive! It's got a lot of negotiation and learning! The only good type of gnomes debuts with the Svirfneblin! This model of "alien settlement where you are not instantly attacked but you gotta learn the social rules and play along" is just the best. This will be done again in U2 and I adore U2. Yeah it's how it feels to go to a different country, especially one that doesn't speak your language, and just have everything be a little "off" compared to what you're used to, but. To me, it will always be The Autistic Experience. How well and quickly can you learn these bizarro social rules you can't intuit and what's the fewest number of whacks to the head it takes to get there? How long can you swallow your complaints when you see stuff that's obviously cruel, but the people around you don't perceive it as cruel anymore because it's The Way Things Are and they will actively defend the cruelty of it?

Ok, ok, back to your regularly scheduled program.

Gary starts off this week's festivities by telling you to be toxic to your players:

Sometimes it feels like there's three Garys in a trenchcoat and they take turns writing the modules.

So D2 starts in the cave at the immediate end of D1 and, let me derail already by saying that I really, really hate old-style hex maps. I cannot follow them -- I don't mean I don't understand how you're supposed to follow them, I mean it's nearly impossible for me to follow the diagonal to the destination. Your coordinate here is R20. Here is your map. Follow the 20 axis diagonally upward and rightward until you intersect with the R row. Can you do it?

Personally, I can't. My eye cannot follow that straight line, it will get lost in the mix of blank identical hexes and occasional interest objects. I sat here trying to follow it for 5 minutes and I couldn't do it. I need a straightedge to do it. The correct answer is that if you follow the light blue area from the bottom right towards the top left, it's the hex up and left of the fourth fully black hex you run into -- the leftmost of the two touching black hexes. I tested this against a few guinea pigs and no-one else could mange it either. Later we will admit defeat and that this axial coordinate system for hexmaps is, uh, really fucking bad, and replace it with offset coordinates (or even better, double coordinates) which more closely resemble normal cartesian coordinates, and by extension are not Eye Strain Central. They have the downside of different eyestrain (tiny font) and that you literally cannot fit as many hexes on the page, but the point of a graphic is to communicate information and the axial coordinate hexmap is bad at that unless you're playing on a huge table with like, two DM screens.

Yes this rant should've gone in D1, mea culpa. In my defense, D1-2 is, basically one module in two parts, they're not really separable.

Here's the coordinate lined out for you, since I imagine many of you have the same issue:

So, now that I have a headache trying to read, we can get to the actual text of the adventure again. Now keep in mind that max movement rate is 1 hex per 1 inch of movement for the slowest member of the party (so like, your guy wearing platemail has 60ft of movement, 10ft to the inch: 6 hexes per day). This means you could hypothetically arrive at the final location as quickly as 22/6=4 days of gameplay, 3 if no one including hirelings wore plate. That is, if you beelined to D2 by sheer luck, never got lost, never got distracted, never got slowed down, never had to take a rest day. Which is good because the food in The Depths seems questionable.

The first segment of the adventure is mostly reprinted from D1 -- random tables and maps and the like. We do get the addition of everyone's favorite early DND trope: a slavery table! And also happilly we get some goopy guys to move your eyes away from that shit:

Which, is a lot more my speed. More goopy guys. It's a roper, actually, although I frankly didn't recognize it. It looks more like the monster from Dexter's Lab? Apparently Ropers have changed a lot in the last 50 years.

So it's all random tables teasing that we're going to end up arriving at a shrine soon. There is a special entry in the back for the new Kuo-Toa and Svirfneblin, and oddly the Svirfneblin don't get a header? We don't learn much. We know that they're natural elemental summoners, that they're "natural fighters", and that they live at some unstated cave somewhere. They like their stun gas darts, they "communicate with racial empathy" (which I guess means body language?) outside their own domains, deep gnomish at home, and underworld cant when they're trading, plus earth elemental-ese. So they learn a lot as kids. They love them some traps, too, basically they're the gnomish Rambos and I love them for it.

Meanwhile, our titular Kuo-Toa get a pretty standard write-up. Driven underground, human sacrifice, raiders, like their war parties. Their priests like their mancatchers, which are based on lobster claws, they spawn in pools, they can spontaneously generate lightning by holding hands (???), are too slippery to grab, can see both infrared AND ultraviolent, can see you moving through basically any magical means, immune to poison, paralysis, charming, sleep, and are resistant to magic missile and lightning. This is, very very weird. They are wildly powerful compared to their later versions, and the only upshot is that they're readily blinded by light spells. Apparently they go insane with such regularity that they have a dedicated social role to controlling or killing the crazed? Yeah these people are a piece of work.

We get a little setpiece moment here where, essentially, there's a rogue kuo-toa who will offer you a trip across the river for 10g. He only speaks kuo-toa and he'll sicc his giant fish on you if you don't say yes fast enough. In fact, a lot of ink is spilled on this little moment, which in all likelihood will be a brief conversation and some passing of money.

Before you get into the shrine proper, some svirfneblin offer to help you in the shrine if you go halfsies on treasure (with almost that exact wordchoice).

Finally, we end up in the shrine proper, which is keyed so let us enter Keyed Mode ™️

The whole area is lit by glow-in-the-dark lichens, which is a spooky way to reveal the lobster lady idol up on the pyramid

While the party can choose to politely integrate into the crowd and play along, there's lots of little things to harass them into nonconformity. Leeches, horrifying offerings, offerings of increasing amount, having to correctly pronounce nonsense names (Blibdoolpoolp????????), holding a live lobster, it's a good bit.

You can, in fact, visit the goddess, who will give you a boon (if you give an offering) or a geas (if you don't), which also grants you kuo-toa speech and also a mark of loyalty, which is neat. You can also encounter her if you fuck around in the prince's treasure room, so the odds of meeting her are actually pretty good! Note that this is pre-"Kuo-Toa believe their gods into existence" so in this case they are worshipping a (hypothetically) permanent, naturally-occurring deity. Being that this is 1e and she is a she, she is Extremely Naked. She is later called The Mother of Lusts, which is one hell of a title.

If you fail to get the priest-prince when you meet him, he actually has a pretty rock-solid escape plan and will come back with an army. So, probably whack him if possible. I really like when antagonists have the sense to piss off and come back armed, rather than pridefully stand and die. You get the sense that Va-Guulgh is priest-prince because he plans contingencies like this, whereas other Kuo-Toa simply vibe. That being said, the Kuo-Toa are apparently not equipped for a search, so it's pretty easy to ditch them.

Sigh.

We do not have a dramatic declaration of THE END anymore, which is a terrible shame. We instead get a more reasonable "This is the end of the section."

The magic of D2 is more in the play and less in the overview. Like, look at this map:

This is a pretty naturalistic map. This is just how you'd arrange a major structure, rather than the kind of nonsense layouts you see in a lot of early dungeons. I don't put much stock in "Gygaxian Naturalism", I think Gary presented pretty intensely game-y spaces and they only seemed naturalistic by 1970s published product standards, but nonetheless he was paving the way compared to some of the silliness you got in pre-G1 modules. This map is good, I think, in that it becomes super extremely obvious to the players from the moment you enter that they extremely do not want to provoke a full alarm -- this is a shrine where you want to kill as few Kuo-Toa as you can, and as many of those as you can behind closed-doors -- it's time to straight up bail if the alarm goes off because you are not beating the hundreds of guys here if you you provoke them up front.

We end with some rust monster art, my favorite monster that I never use because I think I'd get shanked if I did. See you next time in D3!

#1e #chronotsr #dnd #dungeons and dragons #tsr #ttrpg #adnd

[chronotsr]

456. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman - Dragonlance Legends Volume 1: Time of the Twins (1986)

The first book in the second trilogy of Weis and Hickman novels, coming out 6 months after the conclusion of the Chronicles trilogy, this series picks up on some of the same characters from the Chronicles but manages to feel like a very different kind of book.

While the Chronicles series feels very much like a novelization of a campaign (which is really what it is, even if it's a pretty good one), the Legends books feel a lot more focused and centred on the emotions of characters. Instead of a large party of main characters the number is whittled down to just 4 main characters, 3 of which we already know (Caramon, Raistlin and Tasslehoff) and a new one with the Paladine cleric Crysania. Not only is the scale of the characters reduced, it's a book that cares a lot more about the inner states of these characters than the cut and thrust of adventuring and battles. 

Yes, there are huge events happening in the background of the story, as the characters time travel to just before the Cataclysm that changed the face of Krynn forever, but we are with out characters personal stories the whole time and even then, they spend much of the book separated from each other, as Raistlin attempts to fulfil his nefarious plans and Caramon gets sold to a gladiator ring. A great start to a new trilogy, it marks a satisfying change of pace for the Dragonlance novels. 

[chronotsr]

The mummy that wasn't... aka are you my mummy? No! First appearing as the gluey in White Dwarf magazine (1978), the adherer shambled forward and made TSR's Fiend Folio (1981). It feels like one of those trick monsters DMs gleefully unleash on complacent or overconfident players to shake things up a bit. The adherer is often mocked, but I have to admit I thought it was kind of cool when I first saw the monster entry in the FF. A potentially sticky situation… on THAC0 Thursday!!

[chronotsr]

No. 4 - D1, Descent into the Depths of the Earth (August 1978)

Author(s): Gary Gygax Artist(s): David C. Sutherland III (Cover), David A. Trampier Level range: Average of 10, preferrably party size 7+ players Theme: Underground exploration Major re-releases: D1-2 Descent into the Depths of the Earth, GDQ1-7 Queen of the Spiders

Wait, really? This adventure has never gotten an official adaptation after 1e? That feels really weird. Granted Queen of Spiders in particular would absolutely work with 2e, but, wow. Is there a reason for that?

Ahh, 1e cover art. Looks like hot fucking garbage in the best way. Well, at least it's not a trace? You may be aware that early DND had a bit of an art theft problem (mostly stealing off of comic covers), but I don't actually have a list of all the known cases -- finding art credits at all is enough hassle as is without tracking down which paintings are also stolen. The usual suspect is "Greg Bell" and if you want to look this up the word you need to google is "Swipes", not traces. Just, be aware that's a thing going forward.

We start off on a weak footing: a light retcon. The ending of G3 didn't really imply that the drow had an escape route to the underdark in the Hall, at least not going off the map, but the text of D1 does. It didn't really even have a reason to pursue any drow into the, well it's not called the Underdark yet. In fact, it's going to be a hot minute til then, it'll receive that name in '86 from a not particularly liked supplement that got pumped out during the TSR Money Issues era. So for now, it's just The Depths. G1-3 were highly enclosed dungeons, D1 is a wilderness hexcrawl situation. Which is kinda strange, since like the G series, the D series was a tournament module. The answer to this conundrum, is that it isn't a conundrum, because only D2-D3 were used at GenCon XI, as well as an alternate Q1 that never was. Shame! The Lolth egg raid sounds cool.

A big hexcrawl, in fact! It's almost weird to me that D1 is the middle of a sequence at such a high level, rather than the beginning of a sequence at a low level, simply because there's so much stuff? Hexcrawls aren't my jam (admittedly I've only played in one ever, but I have Forever GM syndrome very hard so maybe one day that'll be fixed…) so it's hard to not see something this huge and go "wow this must be totally overwhelming to run". But we will press on dauntlessly!

We get some guidance on how to run this, including to really sell the "spooky cave" vibes. Gary is one again strangely invested in the importance of caving itself, but here it feels a bit more appropriate than it did in G2. Happily, shockingly, excellently: there IS a way to secure the Drow's favor from the word jump! Wiping out the Mind Flayer camp will have a, not 100% but extremely high chance of the drow FINALLY leaving you alone. Yay! And included in the module are some bonus cave battlemaps in case you need to random encounter in a cave. Also yay! Actually, in general in this introductory section Gary is generally sending out good game design vibes, going to great trouble to mention "if they're being careful, don't fuck them over" and "just straight up tell them you can't teleport very far down here" and "make sure you tidy up this framework into a real adventure". All very good signs!

The artwork is, broadly, much cooler than it has been up to this point. Which is good, because we're getting a whole lot of random tables here. They do a nice thing in this section, where they give 'purposes' to a lot of the random encounters, not full-on spark tables but at least knowing that the ghouls serve the drow is a very handy "why are they here?" to know.

The adventure lightly, reasonably, railroads you into your first encounter -- a checkpoint. It's a pretty rote fight, there are two factions but they can't really be posed against one another in any obvious way. The sub boss has a faerie fire grenade, and the big boss has a cloak that lets you turn into a lurker to fly away in a pinch. It's lightly teased that they worship Lolth here. But otherwise it's mostly just "welcome to the underdark motherfucker!"

There's a brief illithid encounter, which is likewise rote. Chop em' up and move on.

Finally, you have your dungeon-dungeon, which is a trog warren. It's mostly just Some Drow and Some Trogs, and it almost feels obligatory? It's got that "bunch of random caves" vibe that I do not like in dungeons. B1 and 2 will both end up doing this. But among the funny things is:

The first appearance of a death lance (drains d4 levels) on some bad motherufcker drow fighter lady

The medal you can negotiate from the drow can also just be looted

A lich is just, kind of taking a nap. the cheeky little fucker has put a magic mouth on basically everything everywhere, so you're flooded with magic aura if you think you're going to see shit coming. He's got some really neat shit, like a portable hole, but unfortunately his non-magic valuables are extremely cursed. Figures.

Sometimes I forget that ghouls and ghasts are sentient and intelligent, since I have had it so trained in my mind that ghouls are essentially smart zombies rather than people in any meaningful sense, but not so in ADND land! These ghouls are trying to ditch the drow they serve, which, understandable.

Thing I only learned now: ADND had many, many sphinxes. Andro (big tough and good), crio (smaller, dumber), gyno (smaller, a little meaner, classical sphinx behaviors including riddles), and hieraco (evil, vicious, and animalbrained). Ours here is the hieracosphinx, which is a pet of some drow lady.

Hopefully we can agree that old timey bugbears were silly little guys. I don't buy that they're evil, they're too silly! And yawn the usual lady monster / child monster dilemma is here, how droll. Your party picked a side 30 sessions ago and now it's just procedural.

Apparently the dark elves and trogdolytes practice mutual aid with one another, though Gary specifies it's coercive so not like that put your flag down. I do think it'd be pretty funny to reveal that the trogs are Actually Really Good and have a lot to teach others about societal organization. There's not really much to say about it as-written, it's just more of that mothers/child dilemma tripe.

At the end, an actually cute little trick that I cannot fathom the party ever working out without the Drow Merchant just straight telling them: There is a room with a magical pool in it. The pool is surrounded by a ton of small gem, which if removed, magically reduce any nearby gems in size and value. But, if you toss gems into the pool, they increase in size and value. Neat! Infinite money machine!

The adventure ends with the unveiling of a new monster-people: the Jermlaine, which are basically just mean little guys who sneak around and cause trouble. Not really a threat, just extremely annoying. Your guys will wanna chop them up for being assholes, but really they're just like the most petty guy at your job. It's a weird addition, but not unwelcome. On the whole, D1 is some lovely and mildly ambitious connective tissue bridging the D series together, and I'm actually kind of fond of it now. Maybe my players will visit The Depths soon…

The adventure ends on an illustration of ya bois taking care of some trolls and shit. Thanks Dave!

#1e #chronotsr #dnd #dungeons and dragons #tsr #ttrpg #adnd

[chronotsr]

No. 3 - G3, Hall of the Fire Giant King (July 1978)

Author(s): Gary Gygax Artist(s): Erol Otus, Dave C. Sutherland III (cover), David A. Trampier Level range: Average of 9, preferably 5+ players Theme: Standard Swords and Sorcery Major re-releases: G1-3 Against the Giants, GDQ1-7 Queen of the Spiders, Against the Giants: The Liberation of Geoff, Dungeon #200, Tales from the Yawning Portal

So that was a little disappointing. But maybe it just middles in the middle? C'mon Gary, let's see that special skill I've heard so much about.

G3 begins how G2 ended: teleporting conveniently on the outskirts of the fortress in such a way as to skip a trek without surprising the players. Meh. Our big bad this time is King Snurre -- I haven't mentioned the Chieftains yet because they're all just midbosses compared to the this guy. And, he's kind of famous isn't he?

For a guy who is functionally a one-off NPC that the party presumably kills, he ends up in a lot of paintings. Not that I'm complaining, that 4e art is amazing. In fact, broadly, 4e's art is a little underrated, it benefits from being less restrained than 5e. I don't think that's a knock on 5e's artists, more like…the art direction seems to be intentionally tamer. Anyway, thank you 4e art, I never realized there was a dog in the background of the 5e PHB until now. Neat.

Yada yada yada the setup is exactly the same as before, but now it's got ~mordor vibes~. As far as changes change, these fire giants (even the children) expressly do not do morale checks because apparently Snurre is such a motherfucker. Scary!

Anyway, we're already in the room-by-room, so let's begin the juicy part:

There's a scooby doo trap with a tapestry in the doorway having holes for eyes so a giant guard can alert the entire building if the players don't catch it. That's evil! But not unfair, which is a good balance. Naturally, there is a ballista tripwire on revisit that does some nasty damage, so this hallway is just The Troll Zone

Snurre has two pet hellhounds leashed to his throne, but also he's wearing a white dragonskin as a cloak at all times, which overcomes his natural aversion to cold with MAGIC. What an asshole! Also, as you look at that picture from the 5e cover, there's a bevy of (unimportant) changes from the original, like Snurre is no longer in his signature pitch-black platemail, but I think special mention should go to the fact that in the original he has literally 60k worth of precious stones on his person and scattered throughout the architecture of the throne room. This room should be GLEAMING.

A Gygaxism: Queen Frupy is a 'haradin', which roughly means 'scold', which. Ok. So, so much attention is given to how uggo she is (to Gary). Actually, I think the description of her armor is kinda cool, she wears black dragonskin, studded with iron (so by Runescape logic I guess she's good with a bow?). Reaper Minis did a character that sort-of resembles the description, but their Vanja has a spear where Frupy uses a scepter:

You can actually negotiate with her, the implication of the text is that she's unreasonable but…just ignore that. Lol.

She also has a magic mirror (implied to be a furniture mirror, not a hand mirror) that reveals invisible creatures in the reflection, which is kind of awesome. Good way to catch assassins! Somehow the drow are using a gifted necklace to spy on them, but I feel like the mirror probably should've revealed in some way (maybe the mirror was also a drow gift?) She's more astute than she lets on, because she has a huge stash of mind control crap in her dresser drawers for emergencies.

????????????????????????????

Keeping with the "giant leader's treasure sucks" tradition, Snurre's treasure is genuinely crazy. It occupies a FULL PAGE, and each INDIVIDUAL TRUNK has a listing and an explicit mention of the traps. Traps range from a standard scything trap to secret snakes to the treasure being invisible to contact poison. How the hell does Snurre use this room? You're telling me he never fucked up remembering which of the 13 chests were trapped in which way? Oh, also, they're pick-proof, because fuck you thief. Naturally, the loot itself is also a fucking trap, because while there is some truly amazing stuff in there (20 randomized magic items, a decent amount of valuables, a +3 ring of protection, and a ring of 3 wishes), there is also lots of troll items (statues with a stacking curse of -1 to all tests, ring of contrariness, ring of delusion). On the whole, a big fuck you to the party. Oh, and while the locks are unpickable, you can shoot them off with magic missile, which is…why?

Snurre's dwarf-slave-advisor is bizarrely well equipped and loyal, and given the opportunity to escape he will…backstab the party. As much as people complain about how early DND has too many save or die traps, I genuinely think the regularity with which rescued npcs betray the party is a waaaaaay dumber and more ridiculous trend. I simply cannot fathom why someone as smart as Obmi would choose to keep being a slave to Snurre when adventurers showed up with the ability to free him. Honestly? Take his big lie and make it true. The lie makes sense because it makes more sense than the canon character.

The scroll that finally tips at the motivation of the giants is, no kidding, scroll #68 of almost 450 paper items, none of which are mentioned. The weird need for a number baffles me.

The kitchen is doing some lateral thinking and using one of the gas vents as a gas stove, which is hilarious.

Oh, we're only now to level 2?

All of the former kings are entombed in a Giant Tomb, which, that is entirely too cool of a visual for them to have not included a visual. In a fucking grave mistake, this room is cut from the 4e remake, so there is no incredible art of it. There is no justice.

If you somehow didn't kill the hill giant chieftain AND you didn't get him in G2, he's here in G3. And he brought the pet bears!

Gary, you're such an asshole. No one would ever think to throw their cool mace into the lava pit mid combat. This is just trolling.

🤷 Guess I'll die

"The were-rats, if losing, will turn into rats and flee down the drain" That is, actually an incredible escape plan, except that we have pre-established that this Hall is founded upon LAVA AND COOKING-HOT GAS.

Fuck the party I guess

You often hear people who got into ADND in the late 1e/2e era talk about how people speculated that Hommlet must lead to Temple of Elemental Evil because of hints about the Elemental Eye and, honestly it just kind of feels like Gary defaults to the Eye. It has come up in every scenario he has written so far (which admittedly is 2 so far), but with the power of Knowing What Comes Next I can assure you that this is going to keep happening. Anyway, there is a temple to the Eye here, complete with human sacrifice, and the allusion to tentacles eating people is already starting to signpost what we now know is true: It's Tharizdun. The Eye is Tharizdun. It always comes back to Cthulhus!

A lot of early players clearly enjoyed Poking Random Shit because if you decide to touch the Elemental Eye's altar and also play every musical instrument in the room, you get to make every person in the room roll on this table, AND also execute whichever player is nearest to the altar (no save). But, hey, you will suddenly get whatever you want most on the altar. If you are somehow dumb enough to do it again, there's a 1 in 12 chance you get a +1 in all stats, a 2 in 12 chance of something extremely bad happening, and a 9 in 12 chance nothing happens.

Would genuinely like to know how many GMs bothered following this instruction. It does teleport you towards the final encounter, so that's something.

An entire page is dedicated to disarming the tentacle wall magic trap, which to be honest looks like it'd repel a significant percentage of players because you either need an evil cleric or some good magic to dispel the wall, and the wall punishes the shit out of you for trying to disarm it. To be a mild devil's advocate, the tentacle wall IS super suspiciously placed (the shape of the room implies it's going somewhere), so at least it's not also super esoteric. If you DO bypass it, you are now the proud winner of the "discover the drow" award! Woah, elves but they're ontologically evil??????????????????????????????????? Truly novel! Eclavdra, head of the drow here, hangs out doing nothing in particular, and you may unceremoniously execute her if you want to bring her storyline to an unceremonious end.

The frost giants are here from last module, if they survived. They really want you to kill these kings!

No really why did they used to draw trolls like that

This adventure just won't end. There's a surprising amount to say about this module given that it's only 22 pages of monster murder and motherfucker traps. Anyway, welcome to level 3!

There are fake dragons here to troll you into getting excited for loot

The fire giants also have a panic room? Every giant has a panic room. Why are panic rooms so normal in the G series?

A SECOND fake dragon that is actually a gorgon, which is almost funny

Finally, a REAL red dragon, which is frankly cruelty to fool me three times

After many, many drow are fought, you eventually run into a magic-fighter drow noble who has a wand of "viscid globs", which despite the suggestive name, is actually a superglue gun? You can literally rip yourself apart trying to separate yourself from a glued object. It's a really, really bizarre item. And it has a LOT of charges -- 79.

Mercifully, finally, something that could be potentially interesting: Eclavdra's rival is hanging out in the basement and can be sweetalked into helping the party screw over Eclavdra, which. FINALLY. However, if you displease her, it's demon time.

For reasons I cannot fathom, there are mind flayers here observing the drow, and the drow are not super bothered by that.

And that's basically it! at the very end they find a tube with a map and a wish leading to the D series, and a quick explainer on the then-new Drow. Well, not that quick, it's a page and a half, but the conceptualization of the drow is basically unchanged between then and now. Evil elves, forced underground, adapted to living there, dark skin, magic spidersilk clothes and adamantine weapons, sunlight sensitivity, drow spell list.

On the whole, G3 is, an adventure. While yes the Drow twist is kind of neat (but not special, since Drow are functionally Melniboneans and Elric was already decades old at this point), mostly this module lacks the fun of G1 and substitutes lots of murder traps for any genuine creativity with the scenario. On the whole, I consider it…crowd pleasingly boring? Your treasure goblins will love it for how much nice stuff they can find, if they survive.

We will end today with the back cover, which features some hippogriff mounts. People just don't give parties flying mounts anymore, it's honestly strange the tradition died. See you in the D series later. And if you're waiting for more obscure modules…I can only promise one in 1978.

#1e #chronotsr #dnd #dungeons and dragons #tsr #ttrpg #adnd

[chronotsr]

Penny Terry cover for Alarums & Excursions 167, July 1989 — At last count the influential D&D zine has published 580 issues, from 1975 through March 2024.

[chronotsr]

This isn't on-topic for the blog but I've been reading the Corum books and

Every single Yoshitaka Amano painting for the Eternal Champions series is fucking amazing. They're all absolutely incredible.

The original American covers for Elric specifically drive me fucking nuts because, like. Did you read the book, even a little? (The answer is no I know how covers work in paperback land). Elric is NOT supposed to be beefcake Conan, that's the entire point! And Amano, seemingly effortlessly, captures the grace and etherealness of a Melnibonean Emperor, communicating that power-through-knowledge, power-through-grace, rather than power-through-brawn.

G3's overview will be out soon. I just needed to shout this out into the sky.

[chronotsr]

No. 2 - G2, The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl (July 1978)

Author(s): Gary Gygax Artist(s): Erol Otus, Dave C. Sutherland III (cover), David A. Trampier Level range: Average of 9, preferably 5+ players Theme: Standard Swords and Sorcery Major re-releases: G1-3 Against the Giants, GDQ1-7 Queen of the Spiders, Against the Giants: The Liberation of Geoff, Dungeon #199, Tales from the Yawning Portal

On the heels of being more impressed with G1 than I expected, will G2 be similarly impressing? Time to find out!

The intro blurb is mostly a repeat of the text of G1, including admonitions that running stock is for villains. Our motivation remains: figure out why the hill giants did that, no matter how fucking dangerous it is. Interestingly, the other main objective of G1 (give 'em a bloody nose) is not relevant here, because that teleport means that the frost giants aren't a threat to the villagers themselves. In fact, the room teleportation schtick kind of means G2 is filler? Like, the big reveal that the G series leads to the D series is not really impacted by the events of G2. So, oops!

Conveniently, the magical chain teleports out outside the rift so you can once again have a secret cave HQ. I feel like you have a responsibility as a GM to have a giant counterattack to at least one of these caves.

I really like the imagery of the descent into the rift here. I mean, I don't think this illustration really does it justice, imagining the deep blue color of light barely passing through the ice and how that gives the area beneath the surface an eerie oceanic glow at all times other than noon -- that's some good vibes. Gary opts for green, which is a fair enough choice. Unfortunately, Gary is more interested in simulating the mounting climbing than vibes, which means that at least one of your party members is going to fall face first into the snow drift below. Gary "generously" caps the damage at 10d6 (avg 35 dmg) -- a level 9 fighter, to be clear, has 9d10 hp (avg 45 hp) and a level 9 magic user has 9d4 hp (avg 23), so that's not ideal. Also recall that you recover 1hp per full day of rest normally, so if you fall and survive you're probably still fucked unless your cleric has a lot of spells left. I'm also pretty sure your cave HQ is above the cliff face, so, risking the descent seems like suicide to me. You're going to lose people and even leaving to heal them back up is simply taking another chance at oblivion. Take the stairs.

If you have the audacity to slow fall down, you will be blown 75ft off course in a random direction. Very cool Gary!

Another interesting detail: monsters in classic DND have a pretty short attention span and will lose you fairly quickly if you flee around a corner. This is particularly amped up here to a breezy 4 in 6 odds of success, due to blizzards blocking chase.

Anyway, we're into the room by room, so let's do some room by room shit.

There is a kind "spiked heads of our enemies at the gates" situation, with corpses mutilated and frozen in transparent ice as a warning to not intrude. Honestly that's badass. What's not badass is if the players have the wherewithal to try and free the corpses (for loot or kindness), most routes lead to the treasure being destroyed and the roof collapsing -- probably instantly killing your squishies.

The hill giants from G1 are lolling about waiting for an audience, so points for continuity. I have to imagine they're freezing their asses off, though.

There are yetis here? Which, going on the graphic and the listed intelligence score in the MonMan, I have to conclude are sentient bipedial apes but like, NOT like the Frost Giants. Actually apparently the average yeti is smarter than the average frost giant, so I guess it's a Diogenes situation where they choose to live in a shitty cave when everyone else has a nice cave?

The 5 hill giants visiting the Jarl have 1k to 6k gold fur cloaks, which like. Imagine a 6,000 gold cloak. Not only is it got to be huge (Hill Giants are 10.5ft tall), for it to be worth 6k to a vendor that's got to be a one-piece fabric cloak off a particularly rare and good condition animal. I guess the players could use it as the world's fanciest comforter?

The official appearance of a Remoraz! These are awful creatures. They swallow you whole and then superheat their insides to cook you. Nasty side effect: its outsides become furnace-hot and destroy nonmagical items and burn people to death. Look at this horrible thing! And of course it's guarding the swankiest loot to date -- a +2 Giantslaying Sword and a 3 Wishes Ring. It's been a weird trend lately that the best loot is, not owned by the leader of the Giants? The best hoard seems to always belong to Some Guy. Naturally this awesome loot "sinks into the ice" if you use a fireball, because this adventure has an addiction to telling the wizard to fuck off. Note that the sword being lost punishes the fighter for the magic users' decision. Note also that the Remoraz going into superheat mode doesn't do the same thing? It sucks. This clause sucks. Cut it. The actual room itself is kind of neat, the implication is that the Remorhaz melted a spherical hole into the ice to make a den, which is awesome.

Another iconic Garyism: ". They have had audience with the Jarl, and after a special wassail to be held on the morrow they will depart for home with a treaty scroll." Translation: They're goin to have a drinking party tomorrow to celebrate a treaty signing.

And like, one room later, we get "leman", which means lover, and "durance vile", which means long imprisonment. The text implies that basically, she's a hot butch storm giantess being held in chains until she agrees to fuck the Jarl. Gary, simply ask a tall woman out. You don't have to be weird about it.

Rather than torches, the feast hall is lit with jarred fire beetles, which is kinda cute

There is a thick iron bar that "transports whosoever is standing on the floor to the entrance of Snurre's Hall [G3]". The iron bar is a lever, obviously, but is this a lever-operated teleporter? An elevator that goes straight down? G3 eliminates the elevator theory, since apparently you can arrive here via pegasus and there are caves one can access overhead. So it's a literal teleporter, and at least how I'm reading it makes it sound more science fiction than magic. Weird.

On the whole, G2 is a massive step down from G1. G2 lacks the factionalism of G1, punishes players for damn near anything attempted, and is broadly less imaginative than G1. It's a pity, really, because it's a far more interesting locale on paper, but the reality is that you could generate a cave like this by scribbling randomly. Meh. Next time we poke G3, and hope hope hope that it's more like G1 than G2.

#1e #chronotsr #dnd #dungeons and dragons #tsr #ttrpg #adnd

[chronotsr]

A Small Appendix: What's a Basic DND?

A lot of people get confused about what a "Basic DND" is. Here is a quick explanation. It's a series of deeply compatible games descended directly from the original DND, without being via ADND:

1977: Holmes Basic, "Blue box". Still essentially ODND.

1981: Moldvay Basic, "B/X", "Moldvay-Cook". Note that Moldvay edited Basic, Cook edited Expert. Basic/Expert, B/X. Still essentially ODND, with babysteps away.

1983: Mentzer Basic, "BECMI". BECMI is an abbreviation for the chain of box sets that make up Mentzer's series: Basic, Expert, Companions, Master, Immortals. Mentzer basic is the biggest single step away from ODND, changing a few rules.

1991: Denning Basic, "Black box". Officially, The New Easy-to-Master Dungeons & Dragons Game. Very rarely discussed beyond the tutorial cards that came with it.

1991: DND Rules Cyclopedia: A repackaging of BECMI, without the I, into one volume.

1994: Stewart Basic. The Classic Dungeons & Dragons Game officially. Very rarely discussed.

For all intents and purposes, in 2024 the ones you'll see discussed are Holmes, Moldvay-Cook, and Mentzer. And no, that thing that looked like Mentzer basic they sold for 4e and 5e is not actually basic, those were just regular introductory sets for 4e and 5e respectively.

Oh, and if someone says something is "basic-compatible" or "inspired by b/x" they almost always mean Moldvay basic. The giveaway of DND Basic lineage, to me, is race-as-class mechanics (eg. your class is Elf). No one else really did that because it's a really bizarre way to essentialize race (I mean, don't essentialize race at all). Most modern hacks have some kind of optional rule to remove it because it has been very unpopular, as far as I can tell.

#chronotsr #dnd #dungeons and dragons #tsr #ttrpg #basic dnd

[chronotsr]

Pre-G1 Modules, part 5 - The Tower of Zenopus

So you probably noticed that this is being posted after G1. Sorry! File this in July 1977, so just after DK1 and 2 and Tsojconth and City-State and Tegel Manor but before Thieves of Badabaskor et c.

This post being released out of order is a function of where Zenopus is hiding. You see, the dating of Holmes Basic is a little squirrely. Most places say 1977 broadly, some people will say "the earliest reference is an ad in Dungeon in September '77", and a few internet sleuths say July 11th . So I hadn't had that down in my to-review list before I released G1, and in the rush I had forgotten that hiding in the back of Holmes Basic is the beloved little module simply entitled "Sample Dungeon", later known as The Tower of Zenopus.

And, consequently, I have no fancy cover to show you! Just this hand-drawn little map:

The Tower is unique in that it is the first module on this list that I have actually run for a real party. Now, granted, I did not run the Tower in Holmes Basic (I ran it in Fantasy AGE 2nd edition), but nonetheless -- it's the first one I have personal knowledge of. And I love it quite a bit.

So historywise Holmes Basic has a lot going on that I cannot quickly explain, so simply accept that Eric Holmes offered and was eventually hired to re-edit Original Dungeons and Dragons ("Little Brown Booklets") into a less labyrinthine mess. This was an extremely good call, and the Basic productline would go on to live for a very very long time in one form or another, only getting seriously changed much later by Frank Mentzer in 1983. There is a lot of Corporate Politics wrapped up in the release of ADND vs Basic vs Original DND, with concerns about copyrights and royalties and extremely Type A Gary Gygax not wanting to share his toys with the others. And, done.

The Tower is interesting from a historical standpoint in that whereas The Tower of the Frog is "here is a dungeon, here is what that looks like", Tower of Zenopus is "here is how to make a dungeon, and this is a dungeon that will teach players how to play". There will be far better attempts at those two goals, but nonetheless Tower represents a module that genuinely holds up in 2024 with some cleanup. It was given a loving nod in 5e's Ghosts of Saltmarsh by having the neighboring Portown be a little up the coast from Saltmarsh and I strongly recommend having that be your second adventure after the haunted house.

So, what's Tower's backstory? Both more and less than you'd expect. Zenopus built the tower next to the graveyard, it was suddenly engulfed in green flame, Zenopus was killed "by some powerful force he had unleashe din the depths of the tower", and it sat around for a bit. The villagers saw spooky shit going on there and smashed it with a catapult. Your party has assembled in the Green Dragon Inn and is going to investigate for phat lewt. Go on, scamp!

The structure of the tower is unusually genius for an early module, in that it features a lot of routing loops that allow for nonlinear but clear movement through the dungeon. The overall structure is, ultimately, a rimmed wheel, an outer ring connected by spokes to the hub. The shape hides this well but not too well, which is perfect for the new DM. So here's the room by room highlights:

The party enters on a four-way intersection, each taking you to a different feature of the dungeon. I have heard this dungeon describes as "like a theme park with four wings" and that's an apt descriptor here -- you're picking between the rat area, the pirates area, the wizard area, and the tomb area.

A very cute and simple puzzle, which is one of those most precious things in life: a four-way room freely opens from the outside, but only lets you out from one door. A statue in the center points towards the door that is currently open, and the statue can be spun to change the door. It's a neat little trick in that if the party gets separated during combat, anyone in this room can't assist anymore unless they work out the trap, but outside of combat it is largely a non-issue so long as they take the time to puzzle it out.

A pretty standard but new for the time tell that the wizard has a petrification wand with a little garden of stony adventurers. It's a classic for a reason.

A regulation water-rush trap that separates the party with the current -- again, a certified classic, creating tension by making fair encounters that are hard if the players get separated by traps

Ye olde "question answering mask" with, again, a precious simple puzzle: a tiny little riddle. If you parse out that the mask is powered by the sundial, you can abuse your light sources to make it be 4pm.

G i a n t c r a b, the most classic of scary "normal monsters", because it is armored and hits hard but people still immediately understand "oh fuck it's a crab" in the way they understand a bear is a serious issue

Giant spiders ambush from the ceiling silently. Zenopus really is a classics fest, but in 2024 that's kind of novel simply because THIS type of classic isn't done anymore.

For reasons I cannot fathom, the local pirates have taken to smuggling in the Tower because it's connected to the sea. This works in Ghosts because Portown is abandoned and so it's far away, but as-mentioned in the original module the tower has to be suuuuper far away from town, but also near enough to be the graveyard, for it to be a good smuggler's den. Regardless, there's a canned setpiece in the sea access room where pirates are coming on boats with a kidnapped noble lady from Portown. They're moving in on skiffs when, a giant octopus attacks! It's very, very good. This is, for my money, the best room in the dungeon and also one of the best moments in DND until we get all the way to N1's tavern.

In the center of the dungeon is a staircase leading up into the remains of the tower -- I made a rather major change from the original here, the original is merely an old alchemist's laboratory complete with a pet ape.

Instead of the alchemy lab, for my adventure I made a rather large change: the original module suggests expanding downwards because That Is How It Was Done in 1974. Instead, I went up. The horrible thing Zenopus discovered had formed a shadowy parallel dimension, so they were in a pocket dimension where the old tower was, even though in the prime material plane it was simply rubble. This blog is not About My Modifications but, that's my free tip about the tower if you ever run it -- subvert the old timey expectations by making it an upward dungeon instead of a downward dungeon, with the power of weird magic.

Anyway, that was all, and amends are now made for my previous error. See you in checks notes like 5 hours with G2!

#0e #chronotsr #dnd #dungeons and dragons #tsr #ttrpg #basic dnd #holmes basic

[chronotsr]

Whoops!

I made a pretty obvious error here, you may have noticed it already. Holmes Basic came out in July 1977. Holmes Basic contains a rather famous sample dungeon, which 100% counts as early module design. As penance, I will rush it out today, add it to the pre-G1 series, and correct the index today. It will be the new part 5 and the reflection will be bumped to part 6.

The Whole Point Is That This Is In Order so please accept my apologies for an actually quite large blunder!

[chronotsr]

An FYI for people following this

chronologically

So when you're thinking about DND as it occurred, keep in mind that the transition from 0DND to Holmes Basic to ADND was approximately,

ODND - Spring 1974 Holmes Basic - Summer 1977 (July?) ADND - August 1979 (the 3 corebooks were a rolling release but they were *complete* with the DMG in August '79

So mentally on our little timeline, Holmes Basic comes out roughly around the latter part of the pre-G1 series, and ADND finishes releasing alongside Hommlet and White Plume Mountain in about a year from now. I don't know how quickly people adopted AD&D, or if some percentage of people abandoned ODND for Holmes Basic (they are extremely similar and highly compatible), but even though the ADND Player's Handbook came out a month before G1, I doubt the adoption rate was super high at this point. The average person playing G1 nearish to launch was still probably toting around the 3 little brown booklets -- unless they were the sort of person who always needed the latest and greatest.

(Dating things for early DND is usually very difficult, they tend to be 'ranges' where they came out SOMEWHERE in this area. I will talk about this more at length when we get to C2, which is a particularly bad case.)

#chronotsr #dnd #dungeons and dragons #tsr #ttrpg

[chronotsr]

No. 1 - G1, The Steading of the Hill Giant Chief (July 1978)

Author(s): Gary Gygax Artist(s): Erol Otus, Dave C. Sutherland III (cover), David A. Trampier Level range: Average of 9, preferably 5+ players Theme: Standard Swords and Sorcery Major re-releases: G1-3 Against the Giants, GDQ1-7 Queen of the Spiders, Against the Giants: The Liberation of Geoff, Dungeon #197, Tales from the Yawning Portal

I'm not sure if G1-G3 are the most remastered adventures of all time, but it's gotta be competitive. I think Tomb of Horrors might have it beat, but I haven't counted. The 4e conversion [the Dungeon #197 one] is really weird in particular because…4e feels like the edition least interested in the legacy of DND? It was boldly doing its own thing. A good quality, actually.

Anyway, it's time to slag off* on a beloved adventure. Note, I am using the earliest copy of G1 I can find, which is from waaaay later when D3 was complete. I apologize.

*And by slag off, I mean "be critical of at all". In practice, this module is actually showing some unusual acumen compared to its contemporaries.

EDIT: I forgot to mention a rather important thing when this was made live -- note the title there! We are officially in ADND land now, so put away your little brown booklets and switch over to the fuck-off awesome player's handbook with the iconic Moloch statue!

Somehow I had gotten my whole life at this point never really…understanding what this structure was supposed to look like? It looks like this.

I honestly think exterior shots of dungeons are critically underrated. Handouts are amazing and being able to flash the back cover art to safely show the party "like this" is actually great, I deeply wish that….any? of the previous modules had done that? I think the only one that did was Tsojconth. Weirdly, the interior drawing is very subtly different. Look at how the logs face:

Not a huge deal but, a kind of weird inconsistency that top one looks like a stockade and the bottom one looks like a log cabin. Side note, we know that the long dimension of this is using 210 feet tall logs, which is to say, the size of an average redwood. These are some big fuck-off trees -- which could be a very interesting detail about the local area.

Now the setup is pretty simple. You were hired to go beat up the giants because they've been raiding the local humans, figure out why they're raiding, and comeback posthaste. The locals have kitted you out with horses, guides, maps, et c -- but no compensation, they have simply omitted a finder's fee (cheap bastards). Also, if you fail, they'll execute you. With friends like these, who needs Giants?

Gary starts with some mild railroading (you accepted the job already, you are already kitted out, you already walked to a nearby cave, you waited til dusk to approach, you notice two guards are missing, and the cave is guaranteed to be moderately hidden. Sure, whatever, I'm going to ignore that if I run this tho. Gary notifies us of a few critical details:

Don't run this stock, that's immoral

Any surviving giants will flee to G2 if they have the opportunity (which, kind of inherently punishes clever play that avoids combat?)

There is a 2% chance per round that the wooden structure will be lit on fire due to chronic rain (why is this a dice roll??)

If you will permit me a tangent, player arson is truly the bane of interesting scenarios everywhere. Whenever a player wonders, "why are all the GM's dungeons underground or in stonework buildings?", it's because doing anything else invites arson as the default and best answer to all problems. Magic items are fireproof and most metal items will not get hot enough to be destroyed, so very often the best solution is to burn the place to the ground and loot it the next day. So, yeah. No wood buildings. Gary's fix is to have all the giants flee into the basement, then waste a week of the PC's time for daring to use arson. Kind of sucks!

Tangent complete.

Here's some random interesting bits:

Gary explicitly states that you can pass yourself off as hill giant kids, which is extremely funny. Minus the implicit child murder.

Naturally there are giant moms doing giant housemaid shit in several rooms. Presumably they have giant curlers too.

The secret door is, literally just a doorway covered by a pelt. I have to hand it to them, that'd trip up most players in 2024 AND make them feel stupid for not figuring it out!

The big reveal that Eclavdra the Drow is secretly behind it all is so lightly teased that it feels downright tasteful.

A giant that uses a ballista as a crossbow (based) and spears for arrows (also based) -- between the prevalence of lightning spears and greatarrows, one starts to think of a certain famous video game. Genuinely I think it'd be a fun exercise one day, for someone who is more knowledgeable than me about Japanese fantasy roleplaying culture, to talk about how anglophone fantasy works made their way into Japan and were interpreted.

One of the cloud giants has hidden a sentient giant slaying sword that speaks all the giant languages, it feels like there's a hell of a story going on there that is only alluded to!

To my knowledge, this is the first official depiction of an orc in DND? Which implies that Gary is team pig-orcs, which is cool. Frankly, I love porcine orcs, or even better just pigfolk in general, they're great.

I think it is actually a rather bold early stance for Gary to hold that, even here in 1978, Chaotic aligned creatures are not automatically friends. Granted, that's how it is in Elric, so it's not THAT bold, but clearly everyone else missed the memo. The orcs are willing to side with you at least in the short-run, and in our previous modules it was very rare to have groups of chaotic-aligned creatures fighting one another. It was always just personal beefs. In fact, the overall theme of G1 so far is that despite the boxy-ass dungeon design, there's already a command of naturalism that even modern dungeons really struggle with. Factionalism truly is the gift that keeps on giving for the GM!

So the big reveal internally to G1 (just think of that -- a reveal internally to G1, and externally to the GDQ supermodule -- we're already getting pacing!) is that the orc slaves have rebelled. And -- hey -- good for them. There's also a kind of…built-in companion refill system going on here? So in oldish DND the way it works is, the expectation is the party is not just 5 guys with swords. You've got companions to help fight, and you've got hirelings to do other stuff (test suspected traps, if you're evil). And you can only hire so many of these guys from town, but attrition is going to happen. So the modules simply provides, automatic replacements should you negotiate worth a quarter of a shit. A dwarf slave here, an orc slave there. Maybe a giant dissenter if you're really clever. One of the potential "rewards" you can get is more dudes to throw at problems.

More interesting bits

There is, what I can only really call an abortive idea going on here where there's a scary temple in the basement? But no one worships there and no information is provided. It is merely a fucked up altar. I think I vaguely recall that it's retconned Tharizdun in one of the remakes? They always retcon things to be Tharizdun. Busy man, Tharzy.

Gary, Gary no. Stop it. Stop this 78 guys bullshit. I thought we had established that giant rooms of giant clumps of guys was bad. I know you have terminal Napoleonics brain but stop.

Wait, Steading is a noun? I always thought it was a verb. Yknow, like "Steading those hill giants", taking 'em down a notch. Apparently, a Steading is a small farm -- same etymology as Homestead. I guess mark that as our first Gygaxism?

Our second Gygaxism is gill, which is "a quarter pint of an alcoholic drink", which is to say a few mouthfuls

Always end your adventures with weird, ominous non-diegetic text. On the flip-side, absolutely do not do what the adventure does, and end on a teleporter that takes you to the next dungeon. That is the worst option.

Anyway, that's the whole Hill Giant situation. Honestly, it's better than I remembered, but in proud module tradition up to this point it gets weirdly filler-y in the basement. There's just something about basements that makes dungeon designers stop giving a shit, I swear. I do need to give the man his due, even though he was a shitass person: Gygax wrote an 11 page module that is of noticeably higher killer-to-filler ratio than any of his contemporaries. G1 is better than any of its predecessors, pound for pound. It is way, way shorter which is I suppose a plus to me and a minus to others, but -- there is a clear internal logic to this place that is tragically missing from (say) The Dwarven Glory. And that internal logic is the beginning of good adventure design. Anyway, we have two fun tidbits to discuss before we end for the day.

First up, we have an of-the-time account of events in Dragon #19! It turns out that in Origins '78 they played G1-G3's prototype. The account is of the winners (mostly West Virginians, a few Michiganders), who used their magic extremely liberally to hide what they were doing as well as to scout. They did opt to light the place on fire, good for them! If you want to check this out, it's on page 3. I will mention G2 and G3 here as relevant later.

Second up, there's a weird interquel hiding in Dungeon #198! Hanging out as an informal G1.5 is "The Warrens of the Stone Giant Thane!" I will not review it in full because my understanding of 4e is, basically just skimming the PHB and reading the DMG, but essentially the Stone Giants are hypothetically aloof and not particularly loyal to their Fire Giant superiors, but someone gave them The Rock That Makes You Crazy and so now they are. Smash the rock!

Man, map design in the 4e era was so fucking bad. It looks fine, but like, this is four circles. And downstairs is, of course, cave as far as the eye can see. Aren't stone giants supposed to be skilled carvers? Anyway, If you feel like G2 would be too big of a jump mechanically compared to G1, this exists. I'm sure you could use it if you liked, and certainly there is a Genre of Grognard who would be kinda tickled at the thought of finding "lost content" for el classico GDQ.

Next week, we cover G2, which was also in July. So was G3! They're triplets!

#1e #chronotsr #dnd #dungeons and dragons #tsr #ttrpg #g1 #against the giants #gary gygax #adnd

[chronotsr]

Purpose & Index

This blog is a project for me, and maybe you, to walk through DND's modules in release order. So this blog has basically 3 goals:

Show off some weird interesting ideas from older modules

Shine light on obscure modules

Look at how modules grew as an art-form

Isn't that's fun and interesting?

Index

I will try to keep this up to date, bug me if it goes untouched for too long..

Pre-G1, part 1: Temple of the Frog (1975)

Pre-G1, part 2: Palace of the Vampire Queen, The Dwarven Glory, and The Misty Isles, Wee Warriors (1976-1977)

Pre-G1, part 3: Lost Caverns of Tosjconth, WinterCon Ver. (1976)

Pre-G1, part 4a: City-State of the Invincible Overlord, Tegel Manor, Modron, Judge's Guild (1976-1978)

Pre-G1, part 4b: The Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor, GenCon IX Dungeons, Citadel of Fire, Judge's Guild (1978)

Pre-G1, part 5: The Tower of Zenopus (1977)

G1, The Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, Gary Gygax (Jul 1978)

G2, The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, Gary Gygax (Jul 1978)

G3, The Hall of the Fire Giant King, Gary Gygax (Jul 1978)

D1, The Descent into the Depths of the Earth, Gary Gygax (Aug 1978)

D2, Shrine of the Kuo-Toa, Gary Gygax (Aug 1978)

#chronotsr #dnd #dungeons and dragons #tsr #ttrpg #meta

[chronotsr]

OK one last post. You should seriously read this series of articles about early DND scenarios, a lot of them are from home games that were published well after the fact and are out of the scope of my already scope creeping project. They are extremely interesting though!

#0e #chronotsr #dnd #dungeons and dragons #tsr #ttrpg

[chronotsr]

Pre-G1 Modules, part 6: Reflections

This isn't a full on post or anything, it really is just random thoughts. This blog has basically 3 goals, in no particular order:

Show off some weird interesting ideas from older modules. This is why the bullet-point sections exist.

Look at all the obscure modules no one's ever heard and don't get discussed so they can enjoy more awareness. This is why it's module to module and not lists of cool things I've found.

Look at how modules grew as an art-form. Their design, layout, styling, writing, et c. This is why it's in release order.

So I'm going to ramble about all 3 in turn.

1. Coolest ideas

So somehow the coolest idea I ran into in this roundup was keep on the borderlands ~in the desert~. The mental image is just stuck in my brain and if you're one of my fantasy age players, you've probably inhaled some spoilers accidentally now. It's gonna show up eventually.

I was also really fond of the really lateral use of animated objects in Tegel Manor, particularly the battlefield painting that spits arrows as the events on-canvas play out. It's very fun and very goofy and I regret the yearly Samhain one-shot being so far away. I will find an excuse to use that random magic statue table eventually.

Third place goes to the pet sea monster of the invincible overlord. It's just really stuck in my brain

2. Coolest Module You Haven't Heard Of

Oh that's easy. Tegel Manor. 100% Tegel Manor. That was easily the most fun I had writing this column so far, even as the pagecount sprawled and sprawled. I think the haunted house is the single best starting location for a new player, it's part of why I'm so ride or die for Ghosts of Saltmarsh (and I do specifically mean the 5e iteration, they did an excellent job realizing Saltmarsh as a location. It's a crying shame people hate because they expect pirates and get, not pirates).

Happily, I don't think the move is actually to just, buy modern Tegel Manor. In fact, a spiritual successor to Tegel Manor would be just what the doctor ordered.

3. The Growth of Module Design

I am telling on myself hard but my favorite part of watching this go on is to see the art of keying slowly evolve and standardize around the familiar model of today. We are far away from the, I know I will get crucified for this, frankly better keying of 5e. Or even the significantly improved keying of 4e. We are in crusty-ass 1970s keying, where if it was typed, it was professional. Honestly Temple of the Frog's keying is a shockingly good first attempt. The keying solution that Vampire Queen went for is, kind of novel in its own way. I kind of wish that this table-style keying had stuck around as a sort of summary page for quick reference, it's…honestly kind of convenient, especially for particularly hack and slashy campaigns.

Watching JG recover from their tailspin of excessive loot was really fascinating. I do keep in mind that weight was a big thing about loot recovery in early DND but what exactly was to stop a party from just going back in and looting the place over and over again, anyway? Sure the monsters could move around, the loot could move, but they still know the layout. I really feel like you have to simply not provide that much treasure, and I get the sense JG worked that out too.

Finally, I am just kind of happy to see the focus on creating dungeons, as in combat rectangles is already starting to be threatened as the status quo. Arneson obviously understood why this was bad, and you can see some designers working it out too. Holmes also had a very good grasp of pacing and dungeon layout that it would take others (including Gygax) a while to catch up to.

So anyway, see you at G1!

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[chronotsr]

Pre-G1 Modules, part 4B - The Judge's Guild Roundup Completed

Oh. Oh we're still doing this? It won't end? Gods. At least we made it to 1978. Anyway, happy eclipse to every. Reminder: the people who run Judge's Guild now are full-on nazis, do not buy their books. Go hug your loved ones instead.

The Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor (1978)

Maybe I was too hard on the Prince Valiant-ass artstyle. It looks very proud for a bandit fortress, don't you think? The full color version that comes out later is even nicer -- it's the one you find on google images first. Anyway. Fort Badboybaskaur was founded by ''The Emperor of Glorious Doomfire''. It truly was the era of so-bad-its-good naming! The fort was built so that if raiding happened, the many small villages could congregate there for safety. Only, it turns out there was a red dragon underneath. And then that got resealed. And then an evil demigod took over. And then bandits took that over.

I read this section like five times and for the life of me I cannot find a prophesy here. They just kind of say it because it sounds cool. The prose in this hand out is, really really rough, it's a lot of proper nouns and moral history tropes -- empire becoming successful and spawning evil religion yada yada yada. The proper noun addiction is strong with this one, we get quite a few undefined proper nouns here. He's another classic: "Zanaaphic the All-King of the Spirit Universe". I have so many questions! None of which will be answered. "Angall of the Perpetual Void" Wow! Those are some neat nouns! The net effect, however, is there was a really skilled evil wizard who got confronted by a god, beat him, and by defeating him became a four-armed dragon-skinned bat-winged magical null. He does up to 16 pips of damage with his silly flails!

So the cover image is lying a little bit about the fortress. In both of the presented maps, there is no cool rampart that you have to slowly siege, there are mountains both in front and behind the fortress, and there are way more than three turrets. I am actually a little fond of this keep layout-wise, it's less cramped than the Keep on the Borderlands is. Naturally, it sits at the foot of Mount Deception.

It's a nice little fortress, no? I would recommend getting a modern copy of the map if it wasn't for the ownership sucking ass in an extreme way. Plus, having dungeons under your keep on the borderlands seems like a great idea, actually. Or, shit, having a rival keep on a rival borderlands sounds kinda rad. Anyway, the room by room is pretty rote. The exterior rooms are mostly just services you'd give to anyone walking in, but the real juicy stuff is all kept inside the mountain walls. We've got your usual suspects. Guard captain, bossman, bossman's terrible wife (and the wife is legally required to be evil because male writers), pawnbroker, human trafficker, tavernsssssss, gemcutter, blacksmith, et c. Some of the names are okay, "Hole in the Hill Inn" run by ogres was really funny to me, I would change them to hill giants to complete the joke.

The dungeon has an interesting conceit where there are some generic "alternate rooms" in the back of the book that come with a blank room number that you can swap if you dislike the default room contents. I'm really in favor of this mindset. I have thought for a while that it'd be kind of nice for adventure books to be shipped in some sort of editable capacity? Like if I wanna do open heart surgery on a floor of a dungeon, but I like the other 4 floors, it'd be nice to keep it in the original format instead of having the adventure book and then some loose-leaf with the changes penciled in. Tragically, the alt rooms are overwhelmingly just monsters in a room, with the outlier being a wererats with a little kidnapping scheme.

Underneath the fortress there are five levels, one is actually above ground level and in the cliff face behind the keep, and the third level leads to the surface via caves. Neat! I'm kind of imagining Gerudo Fortress here on a lot of levels. Here's a quick skim of the best contents:

There appears to be a little rat treasure hoard where the rats have to pay their dues to their little rat kings? What's going on here is kind of unclear to me, but I can't help but imagine one of the guards trained the rats to hide money in the walls for him and the ten rats with silver formation are a kind of animal-passcode.

A chest trapped with some sort of reverse truth serum -- it removes your ability to speak, see, or hear for a week if you open it without permission. Naturally, the chest is decorated with the three wise monkeys 🙈🙉🙊 (and a mysterious fourth monkey the text implies nothing about, maybe it's Sezaru? Curse of erectile dysfunction!)

The alarm system seems to be gong-based

Oh, I don't like this beholder at all. Ewwww! But also, why is this drawing here? There's no beholders in here? Is this some kind of silly trap for snooping players? In fact, most of the monster illustrations are…kind of just random monsters.

The treasury is booby-trapped to hell and back. We have a standard guillotine trap disarmed with a tile puzzle on the wall, a hell-hound guard dog, and the most prominent magical item is a necklace of strangulation. Rough break! Just go ahead and put all of the treasure on pressure plates with flame jets at that point.

A reverse gravity pit-trap -- you pull a book, you fall through a hole in the ceiling and then it traps you in the ceiling. It's just a pit trap at the end of the day, but way vivid!

A chair made of a dragon's arms and horn that will animate and attack you if you try to pry gems off it or attack anyone

Two wizards are having a battle over who gets to own a trained lizard that can sing and carry heavy loads. I understand guys. That lizard is worth it.

Under a sarcophagus is written "If you can read this, you're too close", as well as some explosive runes

The treasure hoard of a lost king, if you attempt to steal it, will turn into a treasure construct shaped like the king. Awesome!

"A similar cabinet on the north wall is labeled "For Future Imperialists". In the top drawer is a Gem of Brightness, the second is a pair of Bracers of Defenselessness, and in the bottom drawer is a pouch of Dust of Sneezing and Choking." I would fully lean in, make it a Cursed Gem of Brightness that you can't turn off, and put the Bracers in the top drawer if the goal is to prank an evil character into hurting themselves.

A reverse-vampire giant lizardfolk that consumes the unlife from undead. So, Tomb of the Lizard King got beat to the vampire-lizardfolk punch, I guess?

Large swaths of this dungeon genuinely feel randomly generated. The worst parts are about half of floor 2, 3, and about half of floors 4 and 5. It just feels like padding to me. And in true Judge's Guild fashion, there are treasure stores in the temple that are "instantly max your character" amounts of loot. Now I get that shares are a thing and you gotta pay your hirelings, but still, 1.5M gold represents like, even if you're a party of 10 you're still looking at instantly maxing a thief, shooting a fighter to level 8, and shooting a wizard to level 9. And there's no way you were at 0xp when you smuggled that statue out, that's going to be an instant max for just about anyone. The big reveal that I…guess you could conceivably puzzle out? Is that the dragons were nearby because they were minions of a dragon-king entombed under this fortress before it was built. A cool idea, that desperately needs more foreshadowing. The love clearly went into making those tombs cool, so if I was going to rip anything off from this module that'd probably be my second port of call.

Gen Con IX Dungeons (1978)

What a name, right? How come Tsojconth got a name and these dungeons didn't? Blatant favoritism. Well actually one of the two dungeons may as well be called the Halls of Grsk. And, wow, everything about the design notes are ominous. "Simplicity would be the prime requisite". So….does that mean this adventure is boring on purpose, Bob?

The adventure is split into two bits, the player-side info and the gm-side info, which…okay. Sure. The titular dungeon is set in the "Celtic mythos", whatever the fuck that means (Bob, the Celtic cultures covered almost all of Europe and parts of Asia. That phrase is meaningless!). TL;DR the old king's wizard went evil and killed the king, left no one to rule, and then went nuts and much later summoned a bunch of demons to protect his loot now that he's old and dying. The local wizard, Framschamsnaggle (seriously?) bullies you into raiding his tomb to get a staff back. There's a dragon in there and you were handed a teleportation amulet that will zip you out as soon as you get your hands on the staff.

Oh. Oh that's not good. That's a very not good dungeon layout. That's a very bad dungeon layout. And the contents are, as bad. I wonder if it was considered bad at the con itself? I couldn't find a single remarkable thing in this whole dungeon. It is neither weird, nor funny, nor clever, nor interesting. It's 30 random dungeon rooms in a row, with a rare trap that is practically randomized also.

The sole joy I can find in this module is this illustration, which looks like a shitpost.

The second round of the tournament (1st round eliminates) is set in a completely different place, which is more properly called the Halls of Grsk. Almost all of this area is also just, save or suck traps and monsters. There is one trap that's kind of classic and okay -- picking up the giant ruby locks all exits, many red herrings, room starts heating up like an oven. The solution is to smash the ruby, which instantly kills the heating element. It's not amazing (how are you supposed to guess it's a ruby? It behaves like a pressure plate trap but the ruby itself is contact-activated) but it's the least bad thing in here. The portal-that-eats-you prank in particular grinds my gears, the game communicates every possible thing to say it kills you, and by blind faith you go through and is the best solution. Picking up the fake secret item instantly kills you, because fuck you. The fakeout trap's sole hint is "why are there two normal doors on the north wall?" which, it's a points-based dungeon, they're going to assume it's for extra points. Also, the whole dungeon is a massive straight line in disguise. It's a wreck.

Actually, the whole scenario feels like a worse "Tomb of the Lizard King" in a lot of ways, down to the silly rhyme on the last page that gives you a critical clue about how to kill the undead baddie. In a sense it's also like Tomb of Horrors in that way, I guess, but the vibes are a lot more like Tomb of the Lizard King.

Damn it Bob, you made it boring on purpose.

Citadel of Fire (1978)

This is truly one of the dungeon covers of all time.

Is… is that The Golem? I hope Rabbi Loew is available. Or, maybe it's good that he's not in the module, because obviously this construct's creator is going to be evil in this module.

This is the least least imaginative of the Judge's Guild modules in this series. It is, simply a wizard's tower. If you have ever in your life read a wizard's tower module, you've read this one. The JG staples of constant slavery mentions continues with slave girls being in every single damn room of the towers. There's, not really much plot to go on either. There are wizards, the hill is good for magic, they are aligned with the goblins, go chop 'em up.

Sigh. Here's the memorable bits.

Nearly out the gate, we get one of those paragraphs that you would hope would be so obviously bad to the writers that they would second guess the decision. Why the actual hell did you stat out some 200 nearly identical goblins manually?

What is that and when do I get a bestiary entry for them? That's not a joke, the module never mentions what this is and now I want this Weresalazzle in my adventures.

The vague allusion to "Shabast", which are apparently a species of people who are intelligent clouds? But only sometimes.

A variety of pens for animals the wizards are working on, which include an Irish deer, a jackalwere, a baby lammasu, a giant slug named Skippy, some orcs, man-eating apes, an elephant, and a hydra

For…some reason there's a tavern on the 2nd floor of a dungeon. In the lightest defense of the module, at least the 2F has a surface access and no pre-programmed encounters between here and the tavern (random monsters thoooo). The owner sleeps with a new person every night, highly critical detail.

?????????????????????

OK so many rooms later there's a pyrohydra with a toothache. Mystery solved, that's why there's a magical dentist!

I hesitate to complain, but after multiple dungeons with 100k+ gold rewards, this dungeon's treasury having roughly 11,000 gold in it feels like an anticlimax. The fact that it's protected by that pyrohydra and electrified locks adds insult to injury.

This is a joke, right? That's your final floor? Anyway, this is just The Demon Floor. There is more treasure here than upstairs, which is a little strange given that the demon serves the wizard and not the other way around.

So on the whole, deeply shit. In conclusion, Early Judge's Guild leaves a lot to be desired. Next time we will -- wait, am I free? There's no more pre-G1 modules? I get to finally do TSR shit and leave this mire?

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS (edit: I was half-right -- there was one more pre-G1 module, but it was TSR!)

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